The first recorded signs of a lottery are keno slips from the Chinese Han Dynasty between 205 and 187 B.C. These lotteries are believed to have helped to finance major government projects like the Great Wall of China. From the Chinese “The Book of Songs” (second millennium B.C.) comes a reference to a game of chance as “the drawing of wood”, which in context appears to describe the drawing of lots. From the Celtic era, the Cornish words “teulel pren” translates into “to throw wood” and means “to draw lots”. The Iliad of Homer refers to lots being placed into Agamemnon's helmet to determine who would fight Hector.
The first known European lotteries were held during the Roman Empire, mainly as an amusement at dinner parties. Each guest would receive a ticket, and prizes would often consist of fancy items such as dinnerware. Every ticket holder would be assured of winning something. This type of lottery, however, was no more than the distribution of gifts by wealthy noblemen during the Saturnalian revelries. The earliest records of a lottery offering tickets for sale is the lottery organized by Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar. The funds were for repairs in the City of Rome, and the winners were given prizes in the form of articles of unequal value.
The first recorded lotteries to offer tickets for sale with prizes in the form of money were held in the Low Countries in the 15th century. Various towns held public lotteries to raise money for town fortifications, and to help the poor. The town records of Ghent, Utrecht, and Bruges indicate that lotteries may be even older. A record dated May 9, 1445 at L'Ecluse refers to raising funds to build walls and town fortifications, with a lottery of 4,304 tickets and total prize money of 1737 florins. In the 17th century it was quite usual in the Netherlands to organize lotteries to collect money for the poor or in order to raise funds for all kinds of public usages. The lotteries proved very popular and were hailed as a painless form of taxation. The Dutch state-owned Staatsloterij is the oldest running lottery.
An English lottery, authorized by King James I in 1612, granted the Virginia Company of London the right to raise money to help establish settlers in the first permanent English colony at Jamestown, Va. Lotteries in colonial America played a significant part in the financing of both private and public ventures. It has been recorded that more than 200 lotteries were sanctioned between 1744 and 1776, and played a major role in financing roads, libraries, churches, colleges, canals, bridges, etc. In the 1740s, the foundation of Princeton and Columbia Universities was financed by lotteries, as was the University of Pennsylvania by the Academy Lottery in 1755.
During the French and Indian Wars, several colonies used lotteries to help finance fortifications and their local militia. In May 1758, the State of Massachusetts raised money with a lottery for the “Expedition against Canada.” Benjamin Franklin organized a lottery to raise money to purchase cannons for the defense of Philadelphia. At the outset of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress used lotteries to raise money to support the Colonial Army. Alexander Hamilton wrote that lotteries should be kept simple, and that “Everybody . . . will be willing to hazard a trifling sum for the chance of considerable gain . . . and would prefer a small chance of winning a great deal to a great chance of winning little.”
At the end of the Revolutionary War the various states had to resort to lotteries to raise funds for numerous public projects. For many years these lotteries were highly successful and contributed to the nation's rapid growth. The lotteries were used for such diverse projects as the Pennsylvania Schuylkill—Susquehanna Canal (lottery in May 1795), and Harvard College (lottery in March 1806). Many American churches raised building funds through state authorized private lotteries.
The numbers game operated out of “Policy shops”, where bettors choose numbers, were in the U.S. prior to 1860. In 1875, a report of a select committee of the New York State Assembly stated that “the lowest, meanest, worst form . . . [that] gambling takes in the city of New York, is what is known as policy playing.” The game was also popular in Italian neighborhoods known as the Italian lottery, and it was known in Cuban communities as bolita (“little ball”).
On Mar. 12, 1964, New Hampshire became the first U.S. state to sell lottery tickets in the modern era. Since then, numerous others U.S. and foreign states are operating lotteries.
It is in the interest of every lottery operator to maximize player participation in each and every lottery instance. Various promotion programs and techniques have been implemented to that end. However, there remains a need for improved methods, techniques and systems for extending and promoting player participation in each game instance.